Cleaning up

We spent much of the day dealing with the front strip. First, we rented a chipper and started cramming bits into it; my dad was cutting everything into manageable bits with the new chainsaw, and then I fed the bits into the chipper. After about an hour and a half we were both worn out, so he took the chipper back. The rest of the afternoon was spent cutting up the rest of the pile -- it's a big pile, and we haven't even quite finished taking trees down yet -- and stacking/piling the rest of the chipping material by the fence.

What we did manage to chip didn't amount to much in the end... There's lots of volume to these branches, but they made a rather smaller pile of chips than I expected. We should have a decent amount to spread around the front strip, but not nearly enough to totally smother the oxalis out there. I'll have to put down some cardboard in spots, or use boiling water, to really kill those.

I brought out the pole saw and took off a bunch of dead acacia branches, the ones my dad can't reach with a stepladder. All I have to say is, cherry and oak ain't got nothin' on dead acacia -- the stuff is like stone. It burns quite well, but it is really much easier to take apart when it's green. I felt like I was sawing away for years on some of those branches.

The front strip is starting to take shape, though. We haven't taken out the last almonds -- my dad keeps asking me wistfully if we really have to, because the flowers are so pretty -- but there's a real feeling of space and openness now. I keep reminding him that I am planting at least one stone fruit in there with gorgeous spring flowers, and if he'd like I can plant another... and the almonds don't do anything for us except bloom. I think the last sweet almond died a few years back, so all we have left are the bitter volunteer trees. If we're going to have those lovely white-on-black trees in the spring, I'd rather they provide something we can eat later on. I have that Double Delight nectarine; maybe I could put in a cherry, and figure out how to defend it against the squirrels. Or an apple, which wouldn't have the stubbornly upright cherry habit, and would still have nice flowers.

Hardy, our neighborhood grumpy old man, stopped his truck on his way out to compliment me on how nice the place looked. We chatted for a couple of minutes while I rested the pole saw; he doesn't talk to many people, but if I wanted to reach out to him gardening would be the way to go. We've chatted about my garden in past years, and he asked whether I'd be doing it again this year. He's an old blowhard, but I'll chat with just about anybody.

We've also had at least one person stop to ask whether we were selling the house. It hadn't occurred to me before, but I suppose all this work could be construed as fixing up the place to sell. I told the one guy there wasn't a chance that we'd be selling, and he drove off... we know we've got a good thing here, and we're keeping it in the family for as long as we can.

Of course, if we were selling, I wouldn't be spending hours in the rose bed with a hand-mattock, painstakingly extracting the bermudagrass. I'd mulch it and let the new people deal with it. :) It's wound into the roots of the bushes, so I have to be careful not to cut too many roots as I take out the clumps of runners. The mattock has a solid three-tine cultivator on the other end that's been invaluable, though -- not a silly claw-type cultivator, but something that looks like a mattock blade split into three pieces and spread. It takes care of the rocky substrate quite well, and since the topsoil is only a couple of inches deep, I'm having to extract some runners from what feels like pure gravel. Having the right tools is essential.

The garden got put on pause by the recent rains. Though I had plastic over the tomato beds to keep the soil dry, I haven't gotten out there to dig because it was raining for most of a day every day this weekend. I spent my time on the roses instead, which was just as essential; I've got most of them pruned now, all but the two under the privet which are declining anyway. I have coffee grounds for the next tomato bed, though, and alfalfa for the one after that; the grain I have sitting out there will probably go into either the sweet potato bed or the melon bed, depending on which I get to first. The melons will get a raised bed because of all the stuff I'm amending with -- I should probably double-dig so that I can fit in the compost, grain, cottonseed meal, and coffee grounds. The sweet potatoes will get mostly green weeds and leaves, with a nice layer of grain and coffee to make sure they have enough N this time. I'm trying to give everybody enough this year, I really am.

The cold weather has been a bit of a shock. The new jacarandas out front have handled it like champions, without even a burnt tip to show for the 33-degree lows; I'm starting to worry less about their frost sensitivity. The soil is still warm, despite the cold rains. It looks like it's going to be a pretty typical spring.

I'll be potting up the tomato sprouts soon; I've almost lost a few to dehydration, and larger pots should make it easier to keep them watered. I'll have an interesting set to give away this year.